And With Your Spirit? Consubstantial? Dewfall? The New Roman Missal

On Sunday morning, November 27th, Roman Catholics in the United States attending Mass in English will have experienced a fairly significant change in the way they worship.

This past weekend, the First Sunday of Advent, at the beginning of the Catholic Church’s new liturgical year, parishes in English-speaking countries began using a new translation of the Roman Missal, the ritual text of prayers and instructions used for the celebration of the Catholic Mass. A short Associated Press article about this change appeared in Sunday’s SFGate – worth noting were the comments that followed.

This new translation of the Roman Missal evolved from the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which allowed the use of the vernacular for the celebration of liturgical rites. The English transitional rites utilized a process that produced liturgical and sacramental prayers that relied less on their precise translation from Latin, emphasizing instead on how the prayers approximated idiomatic English. This translation has been used by Catholics in the United States since the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.

My own personal experience with this process began when I was the official clergy observer for Catholic priests of California, Nevada and Hawai’i to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2004 – 2009. I had the opportunity to listen (but not contribute) to the debate and discussion surrounding the new translations when American bishops met in their biannual meetings. As part of a three-month priest sabbatical program at the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican last year, I spent a week studying the translation process under Monsignor James Moroney, Executive Secretary of the Vox Clara Committee. In addition, the priests of the Diocese of Oakland (the Roman Catholic Church in Alameda and Contra Costa counties) spent two days in October studying the new Roman Missal during a clergy convocation.

In advance of the November 27th implementation date, St. Felicitas Parish in San Leandro (where I am currently assigned as an associate pastor) began using the new Roman Missal three weeks ago. Needless to say, 40 years of ritual prayer is difficult to change, yet I have noticed that the folks in the pews have made a better transition to the new adaptations than those of us presiding at Mass.

I have to admit that I find many of the prayers awkward, distant and formal, with language that does not flow easily when spoken, or at least not as smoothly as with the previous translation. Some Catholics find this manner of prayer conveys a stronger sense of majesty and reverence to the Eucharistic liturgy, while others see this as adhering too literally to the Latin translation at the expense of language that is accessible. An example of this could be found in the Preface Prayer for the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (The Feast of Christ the King), which marks the end of the liturgical year:

For you anointed your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness as eternal Priest and King of all creation, so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross as a spotless sacrifice to bring us peace, he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption and, making all created things subject to his rule, he might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

As for me, I’m going to see this transition period as an opportunity to grow in my prayer and liturgical life, and that, with time, these prayers will become our own. On a personal note, I have found myself slowing down and praying these new prayers with renewed intentionality, as opposed to praying in a rote fashion resulting from familiarity. I am more focused on the words that I am praying, so as to not revert into using the formulas of the older rite.